


You're Only Blinding to Keep Back What the Clouds are Hiding

by Megalomaniacal



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Cocaine, Codependency, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Internalized Homophobia, Other, Religious Conflict, Religious Guilt, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 04:29:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12247008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megalomaniacal/pseuds/Megalomaniacal
Summary: When it came down to it, they always did whatever they could to survive, but none of them wanted to live anymore unless it was under the false pretenses and ugly masks they'd spent so long creating.





	You're Only Blinding to Keep Back What the Clouds are Hiding

**Author's Note:**

> This is. So horrible I'm sorry. Also I'll probably re-use this fic title from Carpal Tunnel of Love

None of them thought Dennis's eating order or personality disorder were that severe.

None of them thought Charlie's drug addictions and childhood trauma and ptsd were that severe.

None of them thought Dee's past emotional abuse and her alcoholism were that severe.

None of them thought Mac's past neglect and intense internalized homophobia were that severe.

When it came down to it, they always did whatever they could to survive, but none of them wanted to live anymore unless it was under the false pretenses and ugly masks they'd spent so long creating.

Charlie was the first to go.

* * *

 

Of course Charlie would die in the bar. Of fucking course. And of course Mac would be the one to find him, face smeared with toxic paint and belly full of booze and pills. Charlie had already stopped breathing, pulse completely gone by the time Mac found him.

If Mac kept his guard up, he'd act angry about his best friend committing suicide without him- but he couldn't hold it together enough. Instead of yelling and raging and trying not to care, he broke down kneeling beside his childhood best friend's body. Instead of being angry that Charlie hadn't told him, he was questioning himself over and over on why he didn't notice something was wrong, more wrong than usual. He'd been stuck carrying the body up the basement stairs, been stuck calling Dennis and Dee and frank.

Dee tried to hide it, but everyone could tell it was tearing her apart. When she claimed she was going to use the bathroom, they all knew she was going to cry. Mac and Dennis lived in her apartment, they could both hear her crying and her breakdowns for a long while after Charlie was dead. Dee stopped talking after the funeral. It reminded them all of when they had broken her before, but it was worse now.

She wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping, refused to shower or leave her apartment. She wouldn't even talk to Dennis. It was no surprise that she killed herself next.

It turned out that smoking crack, drinking booze, and overdosing on sleeping meds and painkillers after not eating for almost a week was a deadly combination. Dennis could tell something was wrong. He was at the bar when her heart stopped back at the apartment. His own heart stopped for just a moment when hers did, and he knew.

He'd rushed home and found her lying on the floor, eyes still wide open. Her face was sunken in, clothes torn and stained and hanging off her much-too-thin frame. Even Dennis- who'd been fighting eating disorders since high school- had never been that thin. With just him and his twin sister, he let himself cry for once. It was cliche, him hugging her dead body to his chest, but he could feel how wrong it all was.

When his twin died, it felt as though part of him died. He'd refused to go to her funeral, refused to see her buried under six feet of dirt. Somehow, he wasn't the next member of the gang to go.

Mac had taken the slow and painful route.

Dennis found his body, too- dead in the bathtub, bible lying face-down on the floor. He'd cut the words 'faggot' and 'sorry' into his wrists, cut off his own genitalia, he'd obviously bled out slowly- and suddenly Dennis wished that he'd kissed Mac when he'd had the chance. It was a grotesque scene. Dennis puked. He bent over the toilet and puked, over and over, unable to get the smell of his best friend's blood out of his head.

By that point, Frank had left the country, and Dennis was stuck paying for everything himself. He didn't let the morticians anywhere near Mac- he'd washed the body himself, wrapped him in the duster, let his hair dry so that it was soft and fluffy when he was laid in the casket. He'd bandaged up all the cuts, as if it mattered, and he'd left before Mac was buried.

Dennis had never wanted to kill himself. No, he was above that. He'd always imagined his death to be a dramatic affair. He didn't imagine it to be his beautiful body wrecked as it smacked against the concrete at the bottom of the tallest building in Philadelphia.

Dee had once called Mac and Dennis a couple of codependent losers.

She was wrong in assuming that didn't apply to the gang as a whole. 


End file.
